Waldenbooks

I avoid the Lehigh Valley Mall like the plague, but I occasionally have turned up in Waldenbooks to buy a gift. On a couple of occasions, the guy who waited on me recognized me from my picture in the paper, despite my glasses, baseball cap and Canadian tuxedo.

I learned that he was James Clauser when he e-mailed me the day after New Year’s to say the store was closing. With a big Barnes & Noble now in the new wing of the mall and Waldenbooks’ lease expiring, the store — owned by another megastore, Borders — decided to get out, according to the mall. Waldenbooks was in the midst of a going-out-of-business sale when he e-mailed me the first time, bitter at the way it was being handled.

He wrote, "Most of us found out about it in a letter to the Morning Call sometime in October in which a reader wanted to know what had happened to Pasta Bella. The Morning Call replied by stating that the location was to be remodeled and expanded and GNC was to move to the current Waldenbooks location."

Last week, he checked in again. “Well, Saturday is our last day of business. A lot of people have been coming up to the register expressing their dismay. As I said to my manager, ‘I feel like I'm at a funeral and all these people are walking by the casket.’”

Considering that Waldenbooks probably drove a lot of smaller bookstores out of business, I’m not inclined to shed too many tears for the place, although I feel bad for its employees. But I will note how troubling it is that between amazon.com, a few giant book chains and big box stores such as Wal-Mart, bookstores find it so hard to prosper. Here's an interesting article on that subject.

Even though I hate shopping, particularly in malls, I make an exception for books. For those of us who love to read, wandering through a bookstore is an almost spiritual experience. When our favorite store can’t survive, it’s painful.

As the numbers shrink, I’ve found myself opting occasionally for convenience. I’ve bought the last three Harry Potter books at our local Wegmans grocery store, where it was cheap and convenient, since I was there getting food anyway. I’ve bought books through Amazon, too, where I didn’t think the megachains would have what I was looking for. Maybe I’m part of the problem.

And truth be told, I like spending time at Barnes & Noble and Borders. The comfortable chairs and the coffee bars are nice touches, and when you’re browsing, the big selection is helpful. They even have live music on occasion.

Still, I have to believe there’s a place in the Lehigh Valley for the smaller, perhaps more idiosyncratic, bookstore. For example, I love that some of the books at the Moravian Book Shop are stocked with hand-written recommendations from the people who work there and read them. That’s the kind of personal touch you won’t get at Wal-Mart.

If you have a favorite independent bookstore that’s hanging in there, please drop a line in the comments. I’m sure some of us would love to check them out.

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Hooked on Books, on Nazareth's Main Street. It's all used books and you can get some pretty good deals. There used to be a cat prowling all over the aisles, but I think he must have dropped over because I haven't seen him recently. He didn't make any book recommendations. It's not fancy, but I like it and the price is right. .